Local Marketing Simplified: Prioritize the Placements That Deliver the Biggest Impact

Top tier digital publishers such as Google and Facebook remain the most impactful, efficient local marketing publishers

For local marketers, there is no shortage of potential media placements across both traditional and digital media. But realistically, most local business want to appear prominently where the vast majority of consumers spend the greatest amount of time—online.

So, while it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the options, when it comes to homing in on what really works you can’t go wrong by following the money. According to the recently released State of Digital report, 50% of all ad spend will go to digital by 2022, amounting to $465 billion.

Digging deeper we learn that:

63% of digital spend goes to the duopoly of Facebook and Google

12% of digital spend goes to the next five top publishers (Amazon, Microsoft, Oath, Twitter, Snap)

Social is expected to command 40% of the ad market by 2022

Why are these stats particularly salient for local marketers?

Local marketing publishers are numerous

Because people are literally bombarded with thousands of advertising messages each day and consumers have learned to largely tune them out. Local marketing budgets are often tight, leaving little room for error and experimentation. As a whole, marketers are increasingly responsible for allocating advertising budgets to channels that can demonstrate a return, and the stats above reflect the choices they’re making—because they work—and local marketers would do well to follow suit.

“In order for ads to really earn the attention of media-saturated consumers, they have to be personal and relevant,” said Tom Affinito, Kenshoo’s Vice President of Product Marketing. “For the local marketer, search can help drive action at the moment of need, and social advertising can create awareness when consumers are not searching but are actively engaged.”

Google and Facebook work for marketers in general, and local marketers in particular, because of their unparalleled access to data. With that data, they are able to provide a number of highly targeted marketing solutions.

Google is one of the top local marketing publishers

AdWords — The search engine marketing juggernaut, which local marketers can use to target searchers with local intent

Local Services Ads — Designed for local service providers looking to drive new customers on a pay-per-lead basis

Google My Business — A business profile page local marketers can customize to best engage with customers searching for their business, or their type of business, using Google Search and Maps

Based on recent data from Google, “near me” searches on mobile have grown 3x in the past two years, and three in four people who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a related business within 24 hours. Advertisers clearly see the value, as mobile-based, location-targeted ad spending keeps climbing.

Google, as well as Facebook and even Pinterest (along with a few others) all have targeting options based on store visits, which rely on accurate location data and perfect for local marketing publishers.

Specific advertising objectives — Whether you’re looking to increase awareness or drive conversions you can tailor your ads to hit the right objectives

Audiences — You can target very specific groups of people based on demographics, or use custom or lookalike audiences, or you can target broadly and let Facebook’s own systems find the right customers for you

Ad Formats —With a half dozen formats to choose from—including carousels, video, images, and stories—you can experiment until you find the one that’s right for your business

Placements — Control where your ads are seen, whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, the Audience Network, or other placements

If you make Google and Facebook the foundation for your local marketing efforts, you can be secure in the knowledge that the majority of your time, effort, and budget is going toward the channels that will deliver the greatest bang for every precious buck. From there, you can judiciously fill in the gaps with whatever additional channels make the most sense for your business and your community.